12 Marines have been diagnosed with malaria after returning from Liberia and 21 others are showing symptoms of the disease.
WASHINGTON - Twelve U.S. Marines who were in Liberia (news - web sites) last month have been diagnosed with malaria and 21 other U.S. troops have symptoms of the disease, defense officials said Monday.Two of the Marines were flown from the USS Iwo Jima warship off the coast of Liberia to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany on Saturday. Thirty other Marines, plus one sailor, were flown Sunday to the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., according to a brief statement from U.S. European Command, which is in charge of the Liberia mission.
A spokesman at the Bethesda center, Lt. Cmdr. Chito Peppler, said he could not comment on the patients’ condition.
Col. Jay DeFrank, a Defense Department spokesman, said the Marines, members of the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit based at Camp Lejeune, N.C., were in Liberia in mid-August as part of a U.S. quick-reaction force of about 150 U.S. troops. They operated from an airport outside Monrovia, the capital.
In addition to the 12 confirmed cases of malaria, test results on the 21 other patients are pending, Peppler said.
There is absolutely no rational reason for our forces to be in Liberia. The purpose of government is not to mediate disputes between murderous savages but to protect the individual rights of its citizens and the individual rights of other citizens when it is in our self-interest to do so. Clearly, there is no interest in our military forces being in Liberia at this point in time. If one side of this dispute were a firm advocate of individual rights, then conceivably, it would be in our self-interest to defend them. Additionally, it would be to our interest to use military force in Liberia if their government posed a threat to our security (such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Syria, North Korea, etc., do). Since neither of these condition exist, it is ridiculous for our military forces to be present in Liberia.
On a second point, it is horribly wrong to be subjected our military forces to harm for no reason other than self-sacrifice. I proudly support our military, but I severely condemn our government for deploying our military forces and putting them in harm’s way for the self-sacrifice of mediating disputes between savages. Let’s get our forces out of every such savage dispute, and keep them from entering such disputes in the future, unless it is in our self-interest to do so. Let the brutal savages with no conception of individual rights slaughter themsleves, we will be better off with less scum on the earth.
